Wind power still tied up in N.J. politics

Jun. 16, 2013

Written by

Bob Jordan

@BobJordanAPP

Robert Mitchell, CEO of New Jersey Energy Link, in Trenton on May 23. / iPhone photograph by Bob Jordan

About the proposal

The proposed New Jersey Energy Link is an offshore electrical transmission cable, buried under the ocean, linking energy resources and users in northern, central and southern New Jersey. This transmission project would span the length of New Jersey and carry 3,000 megawatts of electricity. Proponents say it can improve the reliability of New Jersey’s power grid and help deliver both offshore wind and conventional electricity to where it is needed and when it is needed along the coast.

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A first-of-its-kind plan to deliver offshore wind power to electricity users has been blowing in the wind. But developers seeking coveted ratepayer subsidies are re-imagining it as a New Jersey-only project, rousing new interest from government policy-makers.

The U.S. still doesn’t have any offshore wind farms despite years of discussion. Gov. Chris Christie signed legislation in 2010 to facilitate use of the technology here, spurring a group of investors including Google Inc. to pledge $5 billion to build a 350-mile underwater transmission spine from northern New Jersey to Norfolk, Va.

The retooling of the transmission spine to exclude service to other states — to route power only to New Jersey stations at Lacey, Jersey City and south of Atlantic City from planned offshore wind farms 12 to 15 miles off the coast of Atlantic City — is designed to add more appeal to energy regulators, who can grant development incentives, said Robert Mitchell, chief executive officer of the management company, New Jersey Energy Link.

“This will become an electric superhighway connecting northern, central and southern New Jersey with the potential to strengthen New Jersey’s electric grid and power 1 million homes,’’ Mitchell said. “It will be the most modern transmission system in the world.”

Mitchell said build-out of the transmission link through three phases could carry as much as 3,000 megawatts of electricity and create 20,000 jobs, producing $9 billion in new economic activity for the state, he said. Other entities would build the wind turbines, which would generate enough energy to power three million homes.

It would be up to ratepayers to shoulder much of the costs, though Mitchell said system efficiencies can offset some of the sting. Like solar power, wind power costs more per kilowatt hour than other kinds of energy but has an environmental benefit of no carbon pollution.

Division of Rate Counsel Director Stefanie Brand said a resolution proposed by the Legislature supporting the project is premature.

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“If wind gets built, there are competing ways to get electricity to shore. One of them is to build radial lines from the wind farms to the shore. The other is this backbone transmission system that’s been pushed by Google. Right now that’s not included in the regional transmission planning because we have no idea whether or not we’re going to need that line,” Brand said. “State regulators have not supported that because we don’t know yet whether we’re going to have offshore wind farms and will need the transmission system.”

Jeff Tittel, state director of the Sierra Club, said the revision to a New Jersey-only project “makes it a much better idea that it was.”

“The concern is that we have to get the windmills. I don’t know if we should be building a power line until we know if we’re going to have wind turbines off the coast,” he said.

Google, which has already invested more than $1 billion in renewable energy projects, is working in New Jersey with Bechtel Group Inc., the U.S. contractor that built the Hoover Dam and the English Channel tunnel. Bechtel would build the first phase of the transmission line.